"More help?" The voice was bantering. Yrkoon smiled.
"More?"
"You know that we work for him. Without us you would have no means of reaching this realm at all."
"What of it? Why should my master Lord Mabelrode be interested in your realm?"
"You know why! He wants both the old Sword Realms back for Chaos—and he wants vengeance on Corum, who was instrumental in destroying the power of his brother Arioch and his sister Xiombarg, the Knight and the Queen of the Swords!"
Hanging comfortably on the frame the demon shrugged.
"And so? What is it you want?"
Glandyth stepped forward, bunching his fist.
"It is what I want, not what this sorcerer wants! I want power, demon! I want the means of destroying Corum—of destroying the power of Law on this plane! Give me that power, demon!"
"I have given you much power already," the demon said reasonably. "I gave you the means of creating the Cloud of Contention. Your enemies fight each other to the death.
And you are still not satisfied!"
"Tell me if Corum lives!"
"I can tell you nothing. We have no means of reaching this plane unless you summon us, and, as you well know, we cannot remain here for long—we can only take the place of another creature for a short while. Thus is the Balance deceived—or, if not deceived, mollified."
"Give me more power, Sir Demon!"
"I cannot give you power. I can only tell you how to acquire it. And know this, Glandyth-a-Krae, and be warned—if you take more of the gifts of Chaos, then you will assume the attributes of all those who accept those gifts. Are you ready to become what you most profess to loath?"
"What's that?"
Yrkoon chuckled. "A Shefanhow. A demon. I was human once . . ."
Glandyth's mouth twisted and he clenched his fists. "I'll make any bargain to have my revenge on Corum and his kind!"
"And thus we shall be mutually served. Very well.
Power you shall have."
"And power for my men—power for the Denledhyssi!"
"Very well. Power for them, too."
"Great, fierce power!" Glandyth's eyes were afire.
"Massive power! Invincible power!"
"There is no such thing while the Balance rules. You shall have what you can carry."
"Good. I can carry much. I shall sail for the mainland, take their cities and their castles once again, while they fight amongst themselves. I will rule this whole world. Lyr and the rest were weak. But I shall be strong, with the Power of Chaos at my command!"
"Lyr, too, had aid from Chaos," Yrkoon reminded him sardonically.
"But he knew not how to use it. I begged him to give me more men to destroy Corum, but he would not give me enough. If Corum were dead, Lyr would be alive today.
That is my proof."
"It must give you satisfaction," said the demon. "Now listen. I will tell you what you must do."
The Fifth Chapter
The Deserted City
Th
e sky ship flew over the hill in the sea where Castle Moidel had once stood. There was no castle there now.
Corum looked down on it with a sense of regret which was quickly gone, for the euphoria of the potion was still upon him. And soon they had reached the coast of Lywm-an-Esh. At first the land seemed normal, but after a while they saw small groups of riders, rarely more than three or four, rushing wildly through fields and forests, attacking any other group they came upon. Women fought women and children fought children. There were many corpses.
Corum's apathy slowly changed to horror and he was glad that Rhalina slept, that Jhary had time to look down only occasionally.
"Make haste for Halwyg-nan-Vake," Corum told his friend when Jhary glanced questioningly at him. "There is nothing we can do for them until we discover what causes their madness."
Jhary took the bottle from his pouch and held it up, but Corum shook his head. "No. There is not enough. Besides, how could we persuade them to take it? If we are to save any lives at all, we must attack that which attacks us."
Jhary sighed. "How do you attack a madness, Corum?"
"That we must discover. I pray that the Temple of Law still stands and that Arkyn will come to it if we attempt to summon him."
Jhary jerked his thumb downward. "This is like the madness which touched them before."
"Only it is stronger. Before it merely nibbled at their brains. Now it eats them entirely."
"They destroy all that they rebuilt. Is there any point in—?"
"They can rebuild again. There is a point."
Jhary shrugged. "I wonder where my cat has gone," he said.
When the sky ship circled over Halwyg-nan-Vake and began to land near the Temple of Law Rhalina woke up.
She smiled at Corum as if she had forgotten all that had recently passed. But then she frowned as if remembering a nightmare. "Corum?"
"It is true," he said softly. "And we are at Halwyg now.
The Floral City seems deserted. I do not know the explanation."
He had half expected to see the beautiful city in flames.
Instead, save for one or two damaged buildings and gardens, it was intact. Yet none walked its streets or patrolled its walls. The palace was unoccupied as far as he could tell.
Jhary brought the sky ship down as he had learned to do when, in gentler times, Bwydyth-a-Horn had taught him its secrets.
They landed in a wide, white street. Nearby stood the Temple of Law, of but one story and without ostentatious decoration. A simple building with a sign over its portal—a single straight arrow—the Arrow of Law.
They climbed from the sky ship on trembling legs. The combination of the flight and the potion had weakened them somewhat. They began, unsteadily, to advance up the path toward the temple.
It was then that a figure appeared in the doorway. His clothes were torn and bloody and one eye had been gouged from his old face. He was sobbing, but his hands clawed out at them like the talons of a wounded, ferocious animal.
"It is Aleryon!" Rhalina gasped. "The priest—Aleryon-a-Nyvish! The sickness is upon him, too!"
The old man was weak and he could not resist when Corum and Jhary stepped swiftly forward and grasped him, pinning his arms to his sides while Jhary removed the stopper of his bottle with his teeth, dabbed a little of his potion on his finger and let Corum force the old man's jaw open. Jhary smeared the stuff on Aleryon's tongue. The priest tried to spit it out, his eyes rolling, his nostrils dilating like those of a horse in fever. But almost immediately he was quiet. His body went limp and he began to slide to the ground.
"Let us take him into the Temple," Corum said.
When they lifted him he offered no resistance. They carried him into the coolness of the interior and laid him on the floor.
"Corum?" croaked the priest, opening his eyes. "The Chaos fury leaves me. I am myself again—or almost so."
"What has happened to the folk of Halwyg?" Jhary asked him. "Are they all destroyed? Where have they gone?"
"They are mad. Not one was sane by yesterday. I fought the sickness as long as I could . . ."
"But where are they, Aleryon?"
"Gone. They are off in the hills, on the plains, in the forests. They are hiding from each other—attacking each other from time to time. Not one man trusted another and so they left the city, you see . . ."
"Has Lord Arkyn visited your Temple?" Corum asked the old priest. "Has he spoken to you?"
"Once—early on. He told me to send for you, but I could not. No one would go and I knew of no other way of reaching you, Prince Corum. And when the rage came, then I was in no state to—to receive Lord Arkyn. I could not summon him, as, traditionally, I summoned him every day."
Corum helped Aleryon to his feet. "Summon him now.
The whole world is possessed by Chaos. Summon him now, Aleryon!"
"I am not sure."
"You must."
"I will try." Aleryon's wounded face
grew grim, for now he fought against the euphoria of Jhary's potion. "I will try."
And he tried. He tried for all the rest of that afternoon, his voice growing hoarse as he chanted the ritual prayer to Law. For many years that prayer had gone unanswered, while Law was banished and Arioch ruled in the name of Chaos. But recently the prayer had sometimes summoned the great Lord of Law.
Now there was no answer.
Aleryon paused at last. "He does not hear. Or, if he hears, he cannot come. Is Chaos returned in all her power, Corum?"
Corum Jhaelen Irsei looked at the floor and slowly shook his head. "Perhaps."
"Look!" said Rhalina, pushing her long black hair away from her face. "Jhary, it is your cat."
The little black-and-white cat flew through the door and settled on Jhary's shoulder. It nuzzled his ear, a series of low sounds coming from its throat. Jhary looked surprised and then became intent, listening closely to the cat.
"It speaks to him!" Aleryon murmured in astonishment.
"The creature speaks!"
"It communicates," Jhary told him, "yes."
At length the cat became quiet and, balancing on Jhary's shoulder still, began to wash itself.
"What did it tell you?" Corum asked.
"It told me of Glandyth-a-Krae."
"So—he does live!"
"Not only does he live but he appears to have made a pact with King Mabelrode of Chaos—through the medium of a treacherous Nhadragh sorcerer. And Chaos told him of the spell which is now upon us. And Chaos has promised him yet greater power."
"Where is Glandyth?"
"On Maliful—in Os."
"We must go there, find Glandyth, destroy him."
"No point. Glandyth is coming to us."
"By sea? There is still time."
"Across the sea. He and his men have some Chaos beasts at their command—things which the cat could not describe. Even now Glandyth flies for Lywm-an-Esh—and he is seeking us, Corum."
"We shall be here and we shall fight him at long last."
Jhary looked skeptical. "The two of us—drugged so that our reactions are slow and our sense of survival low?"
"We will find others—administer your potion . . ."
Corum stopped. He knew that it was impossible—that even under normal conditions he would be hard put to fight the Denledhyssi, even with the aid.... His face cleared and then grew dark again. "Perhaps it can be done, Jhary, if I make use of the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn once more."
Jhary-a-Conel shrugged. "We must hope so, for there is naught else we can do. If only we could find Tanelorn, as I wanted to do before. I am sure we should find help there.
But I have no clue as to its current whereabouts."
"You speak of the mythical city of tranquillity—Eternal Tanelorn?" said Aleryon. "You know it exists?"
Jhary smiled. "If I have a home—then that home is Tanelorn. It exists in every age, at every time, on every plane—but it is sometimes hard to find."
"Can we not search the planes in the sky ship?" Rhalina said. "For the sky ship can travel between the realms as we know."
"My knowledge does not extend to guiding it through those strange dimensions," Jhary told them. "Bwydyth told me something of how to make it travel through the walls between the realms, but I know nothing of steering it. No, we must hope to find Tanelorn on this plane, if we are to find it at all. But in the meantime we must think more of Glandyth and escaping him."
"Or doing battle with him," Corum said. "We might have the means of defeating him."
"We might, aye."
"You must go to watch for him," Aleryon said. "I will stay here with the Lady Rhalina. Together we shall continue to try summoning Lord Arkyn."
Corum nodded his agreement. "You are a brave old man, priest. I thank you."
Outside in the silent streets Corum and Jhary walked listlessly toward the center of the city. Time upon time Corum would raise his alien left hand and inspect it. Time upon time he would lower it and then touch his jeweled eye patch with his right hand. Then he would glance up into the sky through his one mortal eye, his silver helm glinting in the sunlight, for the clouds had cleared and it was a calm winter's day.
Neither man could express his thoughts. They were thoughts both profound and desperate. It seemed that the end had come when they had least expected it. Somehow Law had been vanquished, Chaos had regained all its old strength—perhaps was stronger. And they had not, until a short time before, had any hint of it. They felt confused, betrayed, doomed, impotent.
The dead city seemed to symbolize the emptiness in their own souls. They hoped that they would see an inhabitant—just one human, even if he attacked them.
The flowers blew gently in the breeze, but instead of signifying peace, they signified an ominous calm.
Glandyth was coming from the sky, his strength reinforced by the power of Chaos,
It was with hardly any emotion at all that Corum eventually noticed them. Black shadows flying from the east—a score of them. He indicated them to Jhary.
"We had best return to the Temple and warn Aleryon and Rhalina."
"Would not they be safest in the Temple of Law?"
"I think not—not now, Jhary."
Black shadows flying from the east. Flying low. Flying purposefully. Huge wings beating, strange cries sounding in the evening air, cries which were fierce and yet full of melancholy, the cries of damned souls. Yet these were beasts. Long-necked beasts, whose heads writhed at the end of their stalks, staring this way and that, scanning the ground as hawks might scan for prey. Long, thin heads with long, thin fangs projecting from their red mouths.
Blank, miserable eyes. Despairing voices, cawing as if pleading for release. And on their black, broad backs were strapped the wheelless chariots of the Denledhyssi, and in these hastily fashioned howdahs were the Mabden murderers themselves, and in the leading one stood a figure in a horned helm with a great iron sword in his hand. And they thought they could hear his laughter, though it must be another sound, perhaps a sound from the monstrous black flying things.
"It is Glandyth of course," said Corum. A crooked smile was on his face. "Well, we must try to fight him. If I can summon aid, it can engage Glandyth and his things while we run to warn Rhalina."
He raised his good right hand to his bad right eye, to pull back the patch and let himself see into the netherworld, where waited those whom he had slain with the power of the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn, who were now his prisoners, waiting to be released to take other foes who might replace them and so free them from that netherworld for good. But the patch would not move, it was as if it was glued to the eye beneath. He pulled with all his strength.
He raised the Hand of Kwll with its supernatural strength to pull back the patch, but the Hand of Kwll refused to approach the patch. Those things which had aided him now plainly refused to aid him.
Was the power of Chaos so great that it could control even these?
With a sob Corum turned and began to run through the streets, back toward the Temple of Law.
The Fifth Chapter
The Weary God
And when Corum and Jhary came to the Temple of Law with horror in their hearts, they saw that Rhalina was waiting for them and she was smiling.
"He is here! He has come!" she cried. "It is Lord Arkyn..."
"And Glandyth comes from the east," panted Jhary.
"We must flee in the sky ship. It is all we can do. Corum's power is gone—neither the Hand nor the Eye will obey him."
Corum strode into the Temple. He was resentful and wished to express his resentment to Arkyn of Law, whom he had helped and who was not now helping him.
There was something hovering at the far end of the Temple, close to where a pale Aleryon sat with his back against the wall. A face? A body? Corum peered hard, but his peering seemed to make it fainter.
"Lord Arkyn?"
A far away voice: "Aye ..."
"What is the matter? Why are
the forces of Law so weak?"
"They are stretched so thinly through the two realms which we control. Mabelrode sends all his forces to aid those who serve Chaos here. . . . We fight on ten planes, Corum . . . ten planes . . . and we are so recently established .. . our power is still weak . .."
Corum held up his useless, alien hand. "Why do I no longer control the Eye of Rhynn and the Hand of Kwll? It was our one hope of defeating Glandyth, who even now comes against us!"
"I know that. . . . You must escape . . . take your sky ship through the dimensions . . . seek Eternal Tanelorn . . .
there is a correspondence between your powerlessness and your need to find Tanelorn . . ."
"A correspondence? What correspondence?"
"I can only sense it... I am weakened by this struggle, Corum . . . 1 am weary. . .. My powers are thin now. . . .
Find Tanelorn . . ."
"How can I? Jhary cannot steer the sky ship through the dimensions."
"He must try to do so .. ."
"Lord Arkyn—you must give me clearer instructions.
Even now Glandyth comes to Halwyg. He intends to seize this whole plane and rule it. He intends to destroy all of us who remain. How can we defend those who suffer the Chaos madness?"
"Tanelorn.... Seek Tanelorn.... It is the only way you can hope to save them... .1 can tell you no more.... It is all I see ... all I see .. ."
"You are a feeble god, Lord Arkyn. Perhaps I should have pledged my loyalty to Chaos, for if horror and death are to rule the world, one might as well become that horror and that death ..."
"Do not be bitter, Corum. . . . There is still some hope that you may succeed in banishing Chaos from all the Fifteen Planes ..."
"It is strength I need now—not hope."
"Hope to find the strength you need in Tanelorn.
Farewell . . ."
And the vague shape vanished. Outside Corum heard the cries of the black flying things. He went to where Aleryon lay. The old man had exhausted himself trying to call Arkyn. "Come, old man. We will take you to the sky ship with us—if there is time."
But Aleryon did not reply for, while Corum had conversed with the weary god, he had died.
Knight of the Swords Page 34
